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Chamonix Snow Report: 5th May 2006

featured in Snow report Author Ellie Mahoney, Chamonix Editor Updated

The season is coming to a conclusion at Grands Montets. This is the final weekend, with the coming holiday Monday being the very last day. Freeride days in recent years have been over the last weekend (last year it was for two days) but this year we have just the one day. There's normally a party atmosphere with music and lots of food and drink, a small fun park with jumps, rails and, of course, the notorious water slide. Usually there's also a demonstration with people jumping out of helicopters with parachutes and winged suits trailing smoke through the skies. Preparations have started to get underway today. The water slide is built and I saw a few people busily patching holes in the liner before it gets filled with freezing-cold water; there was also a piste basher rebuilding one of the lower jumps in the fun park into something much bigger.

As for the snow and pistes, Pierre a Ric has finally closed – the recent hot sunny days (temperatures in the low twenties) have taken their toll. I can't remember it lasting this long before but it's well and truly over for it now, although I noticed a few diehards still skiing over its brown and rocky corpse today. You could probably make it down without too much walking but it isn't going to do the base of your skis much good.

Up on the main part of the hill there aren't many lifts left running. Today we had the Bochard gondola, the Marmotton chair and top cable car, so not a great deal of variation possible but good for a few hours riding around, which is about all you need as the snow gets pretty sticky by the afternoon. We went up at around 10:30 and found the snow on Bochard in good condition. It had softened a little but still had a firm base and was a long way off turning to slush. It was well groomed with barely anyone else out on the hill, which meant that we could safely use the whole of the piste without having to worry about collisions. Combe de la Pendant is now out of reach as the Pendant chair is closed; so is the Plan Roujon chair, which is a bit of a shame as the snow still looked good in the Pendant bowl from the top of Bochard. There's always the possibility of hiking out I suppose.

The top of Grands Montets was a different matter though. After a 15-minute wait for enough people to go up we arrived at the top to sample yesterday afternoon's refrozen slush. The solid bumps and lumps on the Pylones pistes were hard work on the legs; it would have been better to do the run later in the afternoon once it had softened. The bumps continued down to the top of the Herse chair after which the run improved dramatically. It was smooth corduroy all the way down to Lognan, and hardly anyone else had skied it all morning. The first half was about perfect, the second half a little too slushy and it was starting to get a little sticky. We finished on a good note with another run down the Bochard piste, which was still good at 1:00pm, before downloading on the cable car to Argentiere.

Useful Information
Cross-country skiing is Open
Piste Maps for Chamonix (pdf format), Les Houches (jpg format), Cross-country skiing (pdf format), and Mountain-bike trails (pdf format)
Current status for opening of Pistes & Lifts
Chamonix Webcam Index

We will be keeping this Chamonix snow report updated often during the season, but if you want even more up-to-date news on the ski conditions, why not sign up for our Dump Alert? We'll email you each time it snows enough to significantly change the skiing conditions. It's great to know that the snow is falling in the run-up to your holiday, and it might even allow you to book a last-minute weekend when the snow is particularly good. The service is free, and you can unsubscribe whenever you like.

Useful Links
Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research
French Avalanche Research Institute
Meteo France - Mountain weather and avalanche conditions bulletins (in French)
Henry's Avalanche Talk - popular avalanche training sessions based in French Alps as well as translation of current avalanche conditions
PisteHors.com - Backcountry Skiing and Snowboarding News in English for the French Alps. Excellent coverage of avalanche safety and advice

Additional snow and weather information provided, with thanks, by meteo.chamonix.com and the Tourist Office

Stats

Avalanche Risk
  • Level 1

Snow Report
  • 0

  • Total Pistes: 80

  • Alt. Resort: 2000

  • Alt. Summit: 3000

  • Alt. Last Snow: 2000

  • High Temp.: 18

  • Alt. High Temp.: 1050